Books
fromThe New Yorker
3 days agoDaniyal Mueenuddin on the Uses, and Abuses, of Real Life
The line between inspiration and appropriation in storytelling is complex and often controversial.
When James Joyce first travelled from Dublin to Trieste in 1904, he went via Paris, Zurich and Ljubljana. Zurich, because he mistakenly believed a job to be awaiting him there, and Ljubljana because groggy after the night train he thought they'd pulled into Trieste. By the time he twigged, the train had departed and, without ready cash, Joyce and his partner Nora Barnacle had to spend a night on the tiles.